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Additional Credits

Video

Photographer Statement

I have actually been working on this project "Personalizing the World Health Crisis" for many more than 10 years. Before this project I spent 5 years working on the Global Landmine issue, and before that, for nearly ten years, I documented topics around "War Affected Children".

Documentary photography for me has always been a means to an end, a great way to tell a story. It involves paying attention, inside and out, and getting as close as I can. There is no magic to this. I simply spend a lot of time with the people I’m photographing, and I usually end up photographing my friends.

Good photography moves people not through misrepresenting, but through representing a moment of looking more deeply at the subject than the viewer had previously experienced.

As a documentary photographer my worst nightmare is to take advantage of someone’s suffering. When empathy is overshadowed by the ego all is lost. I am always humbled by my subjects and learn much more about myself than I do about them. Photography is practice in following my heart, and re-specting others”.

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Orthopaedic Centre, Wazir Hospital, Kabul, Afghanistan. Wazir Hammond, age nine, requires prosthesis refittings every six months. He rests against a wall of sandbags that protect the hospital against rockets, shelling, and bombs. An estimated 10 million landmines pollute nearly 500 square kilometres of land in Afghanistan.

“Personalizing the World Health Crisis”

Fourteen million people die each year from treatable diseases; another 2 billion are infected, and 1.3 billion people lack clean water, and 2.6 billion lack sanitation. Yet, the amount spent on world health is less 2% of the global military budget.
In addition to Aids and Malaria, there are numerous little known diseases like sleeping sickness, river blindness, rotavirus, and trachoma, all of which shatter families; jolt economies and destabilize security and food supplies.
By living among, and forming intimate friendships with the diseased and disenfranchised people whose stories Robert Semeniuk documents, this project aims to give a voice, hope and dignity to the victims, humanize the crisis by putting faces and personalities on the overwhelming statistics, and educative, inform and galvanize Westerners to pressure their governments to act.
A long term project, and includes:

Aids & Dislocation Among the San: The Kalahari

Trachoma in Ethiopia

Malaria Among Refugees on the Thai/Burmese border

Current legs of this project are aimed at reducing stigma around mental illness, and the current effects of Climate Change on Food Security.

Fourteen million people die each year from treatable diseases; another 2 billion are infected, and 1.3 billion people lack clean water, and 2.6 billion lack sanitation. Yet, the amount spent on world health is less 2% of the global military budget.
In addition to Aids and Malaria, there are numerous little known diseases like sleeping sickness, river blindness, rotavirus, and trachoma, all of which shatter families; jolt economies and destabilize security and food supplies.
By living among, and forming intimate friendships with the diseased and disenfranchised people whose stories Robert Semeniuk documents, this project aims to give a voice, hope and dignity to the victims, humanize the crisis by putting faces and personalities on the overwhelming statistics, and educative, inform and galvanize Westerners to pressure their governments to act.
A long term project, and includes:

Aids & Dislocation Among the San: The Kalahari

Trachoma in Ethiopia

Malaria Among Refugees on the Thai/Burmese border

Current legs of this project are aimed at reducing stigma around mental illness, and the current effects of Climate Change on Food Security.

I have actually been working on this project "Personalizing the World Health Crisis" for many more than 10 years. Before this project I spent 5 years working on the Global Landmine issue, and before that, for nearly ten years, I documented topics around "War Affected Children".

Documentary photography for me has always been a means to an end, a great way to tell a story. It involves paying attention, inside and out, and getting as close as I can. There is no magic to this. I simply spend a lot of time with the people I’m photographing, and I usually end up photographing my friends.

Good photography moves people not through misrepresenting, but through representing a moment of looking more deeply at the subject than the viewer had previously experienced.

As a documentary photographer my worst nightmare is to take advantage of someone’s suffering. When empathy is overshadowed by the ego all is lost. I am always humbled by my subjects and learn much more about myself than I do about them. Photography is practice in following my heart, and re-specting others”.

Orthopaedic Centre, Wazir Hospital, Kabul, Afghanistan. Wazir Hammond, age nine, requires prosthesis refittings every six months. He rests against a wall of sandbags that protect the hospital against rockets, shelling, and bombs. An estimated 10 million landmines pollute nearly 500 square kilometres of land in Afghanistan.

Lennah Nanke Mothimit, 38, visits with her sister, Anna. Nanke contracted AIDS in 1999 from a rapist. She is one of the few women in D’Kar who is open about her HIV status. She is currently estranged from her mother, ostracized by the church, and abandoned by the fathers of her children. “My mother is embarrassed and doesn’t want to face thinking about the time when I lay down.” Nanke makes money by selling home made beer and cleaning a foreign aid worker’s house once a week. She has two grown daughters, and two babies who live with her in her one-room tin shack. She laughs when I ask, “Where are the fathers?” The monthly government food ration of mealie meal and oil, oranges, is never enough.

Ghanzi ghetto
For over a decade San people have been squatting on the outskirts of Ghanzi. They live in tin shacks constructed from recycled and waste material. They come with nothing from the villages and farms hoping for something that never comes. Children raise children because both parents and grandparents have died of AIDS.

Ghanzi ghetto
The highest risk groups in Botswana are disempowered women, marginalized youth, street, sex, and migrant workers, the displaced, and refugees. The Bushmen fit into all these categories. Desperation lures young San women/girls to men with money. They charge 50 pula ($10) for sex with a condom and 200 pula ($40) without a condom.

homecare
Kgomotso Majova, 36, is dying but is ineligible for ARV (anti-retroviral) treatment because she has no ID card. Nearly 40% of all people between 16 and 49 years old in Botswana is HIV positive. In 10 years the average life expectancy will have fallen from 47 to 27.

D'kar child
Koleba Caman is 4 years old. She was born with AIDS. Her anti-retroviral medications make her sick. Her mother died last year, and her father was never around. Her grandparents care for her and her 10 year old brother, who tolerates the medication.

We are traveling along a rough and remote side road that crosses into Burma. The Karen army controls this area of the border. Just inside burma is an IDP camp (Internally Displaced People), where about 100 families live with nothing after having their food stolen and crops burned, fearing from landmines, or forced into carrying supplies for the Burmese military, or worse. We came here with two medics that work at the malaria clinic in Le Per Her IDP camp. These people are completely reliant upon others for their food and health care, and live everyday in fear.Every time undocumented people travel they risk either being arrested or having to pay off authorities.

Malaria ward, Mae Tao Clinic, Mae Sot. Today there have been four new malaria cases admitted. "Unfortunately, most people people don't come here until they are very sick" says Saw Too, 29 year old medic. "Police and border authorities are less likely to be a problem if someone is really sick."

Mae Tao Clinic. Last year the Mae Tao Clinic employed 200 workers maintained 120 inpatient beds, and treated over 100,000 patients. Over the years the clinic has trained hundreds of health care workers, often through the work of international volunteersLast year the Mae Tao Clinic employed 200 workers maintained 120 inpatient beds, and treated over 100,000 patients. Over the years the clinic has trained hundreds of health care workers, often through the work of international volunteers

Shokalo Malaria Research Unit, Wang Pang clinic: on the border between Burma and Thailand. A 26 year old Karen refugee fleeing Burma was brought to the clinic this morning by relatives, who carried him for 4 days from an Internally Displaced Camp inside Burma. Afraid to use his real name he calls himself Zo Zo and he waits for the result of his blood test which will determine how servere his malaria is and his treatment. He ends up needing a blood transfution to save his life. SMRU clinics serve a population of 15-20,000. Since 1986 over 10,000 people have been enrolled in more than 18 malaria researchstudies with over 90% patients attending follow up assessments. Here on the border are the world's most lethal and resistant strains of malaria. Researchers worry that the parasite will spread to Africa.

On The Road to Soddo: Ethiopia leads the world in blindness and eye impairment. Trachoma is endemic in the districts of Soddo, Alaba, and Gurage where these photographs where taken, during December 2006. Hospitals and field clinics are few and far between. While community wells and latrines are continually being dug, many people carry water often many kilometers to homes.

At an Alaba District, children regularly have their eyes tested by teachers or a visiting district nurse to detect and determine if any diminished eyesight is due to a refractory problem or an infection, like trachoma. Homemade “pinhole glasses” an eye chart, and eyelid examinations, are the tools. The children are told about the importance of washing their hands and faces. Surveys show that 34% of the children in these villages suffer from active trachoma.

Asra Tsakik, the Field Coordinator for Orbis International checks the eyes of Workete Gujama. Her corneas have scarred over as a result of an advanced complication of trachoma called trachomatous trichiasis, which turns the eyelashes inward to scratch and scar the cornea with every blink.

Melesech Achiso is 15 years old. Her eyes have been infected many times, and her eyelashes have turned in and scarred the corneas. Her early symptoms went untreated, the follicles swelled into gray pimples, and small blood vessels grew inside her corneas. The only possibility for restoring her sight is a cornea transplant. She is here to see the one visiting ophthalmologist, who comes to Soddo once a year, for one month, from Addis Ababa. "This list is just too long for one surgeon" Dr. Getenet tells me. The chance of her receiving a transplant is virtually none.

Sister Genet Bogala operates on Sherefa Ali, 30, while Keddr Mengi, 45 waits outside for his turn with the field nurse. Nearly 2,600 such surgeries were performed in Gurage district in the last 10 months.

Amaredtt Turq, 41, undergoes trichiasis surgery. The procedure involves making a one half inch incision through the upper eyelid, and then sewing it together so as to pull or "flip" the eyelashes away from the cornea, thus preventing further damage to the cornea. Sister Bogala tells me that they do surgery when more than five eyelashes are scratching the cornea. Up to that point they suggest antibiotics and epilation until more severe trachomatous trichiasis develops. After surgery the patients are given a topical antibiotic and told to come back in a week to have the stitches removed.

This is Shawn, who lives in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, considered the poorest neighbourhood in Canada.
He like most of the 3000 residents in this area are street people with metal health issues, including addiction.
Shawn has been addicted to crack cocaine for 15 years. Our of shame he smokes in a one of the many back alleys. This is from an ongoing project aimed at helping to reduce stigma around mental illness.
Shawn is bright and articulate, yet as "crack head" is feared by almost everyone. The project has to do with re-specting a person, and when you look him over, and get to know him, you will love him. We don't call people with breast cancer cancerous. Yet, we are quick to label someone "mentally ill".

Sharon is a Heron Addict and street person. She used to be in a home in a community and did odd jobs and liked to paint, but the government run mental health care facility was closed up, and she was homeless.
She began to self-medicate herself with pain killers and narcotics. Drug addiction is about 20% substance and about 80% personality. Everyday is hell for Sharon. She suffers from Schizophrenia. We don't call people with breast cancer cancerous. Yet, we are quick to label someone "mentally ill".